A Couple Of Semi-Audio-Related Things
A few notes of interest for the audio pros in the house:
Marathon has released a horizontal rackmount for G5s. When Apple unveiled the G5 at WWDC 2003, several sound editors were gathered in my office, watching the streaming Quicktime and drooling. But as soon as the specs came out we saw two big problems: only 3 PCI slots---4 slots is really optimal for Pro Tools systems, and a height of 20". The standard size for rackmount gear is 19". The new computers were an 1" too tall. You couldn't secure them in a rack with all your other gear. And all over 1 stupid inch! It seemed so ridiculous. Doesn't Apple realize that the music and film industries are some of their biggest clients? Lots and lots of people in these industries like to rackmount their gear.
Well Marathon has finally released a solution. I figured they eventually would. Unfortunately the installation instructions include the use of a hacksaw.
This isn't new but I just recently stumbled on to it:
Fxpansion makes a few audio wrapper applications including a VST to RTAS Adapter. This software allows Pro Tools and Pro Tools LE, software which only supports its own native audio plug-ins---Audiosuite, Real-Time Audiosuite, and TDM, to run VST plug-ins as RTAS plug-ins. What a great idea! And for under $100.
They also make a VST to AudioUnit Adapter which is nice for Logic users who might have been annoyed by Apple's decision to drop support for VST and only support the native OS X plug-ins standard AudioUnits. (Of course in fairness to Apple, they have offered a VST to AU SDK. And I've read stories of the conversion only taking a couple of hours to clean up code.)
And they have a third adapter which is VST to Rewire. This one sounds very interesting. Rewire is an inter-audio app bussing standard. It allows you do do things like design some techno masterpiece in Reason and send the sound directly into Pro Tools for recording. All internal. All digital. In Pro Tools Rewire is a plug-in that gets activated on a track. So in essence its VST to Rewire might be very similar to VST to RTAS. However, Soundminer allows you to audition 5.1 audio straight from Pro Tools by running 4 Rewire plug-ins---2 stereo and 2 mono. Maybe you can do similar things with this adapter. It would interesting to check out.
Comments
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Posted by: SnakeBoy | July 15, 2004 9:40 AM
I bought the VST->Rewire adapter NOVEMBER of last year. Never got a product(after I had paid it was told to me that the software was pre-release and the link was to nothing more than a text file placeholder.) Subsequent emails(gradually increasing in tone) ever 3-4 months have garnered no response! I was going to buy BFD(Their drum sampler) but have since gone with Drumkit From Hell Superior just because of their work ethic!
B-E-W-A-R-E
Posted by: Justin | July 17, 2004 4:28 AM
Wow! That's good to know. Thanks, Justin.
It sucks too. Not just because they ripped you off but also because it seemed like like such a good idea for a product. I don't know of anyone else that has something like this.
Posted by: Jon![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.idmonsters.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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July 17, 2004 6:19 AM
I'll disgruntily admit that the VST->RTAS wrapper works pretty good though!
Posted by: Justin | July 18, 2004 5:07 AM